WASHINGTON — The Stillaguamish Tribe is undertaking a multimillion-dollar effort to restore the river named for its people.
The project was born out of the Endangered Species Act—Chinook salmon populations had cratered by the 1990s, and the federal government mandated that something be done to improve the health of the fish that is foundational to its ecosystem.
It sparked a grassroots effort across Washington state that changed how the U.S. government develops plans to restore endangered species. The tribes and the state came up with the plan, rather than having one imposed on them.
For Chinook who run the Stillaguamish River, the plan examined how the waterway flows now versus how it did nearly 150 years ago, says Jason Griffith, the environmental program manager for the Tribe.
“The marshes were thousands of acres that spread kind of from where we’re standing all the way past Stanwood north of us into Skagit Bay,” Griffith said, “it was continuous marsh from here almost to Mount Vernon.”
In the 1880s, it was considered farmland. From then through 1920, farms started to dot the area, covering an undulating web of water channels into plotted land while clearing native plants for agricultural crops and livestock.
Levees were erected to squeeze the Stillaguamish into a narrow channel, and a sea dike was built, both to protect the farmland from rising tides and raging floodwater.
Griffith said it was like pinching a hose, creating a faster flow in the river.
“We brought that pinch a mile upstream and widened it out and provided more avenues for flood water,” Griffith said.
The Tribe has purchased around $12 million of farmland to restore the marshy wetland that once was. They clear the buildings, then dig trenches, easing the water pressure and returning the mouth of the river to the river delta it was 150 years ago.
Those channels are crucial for juvenile Chinook, Griffith says. It’s the mix of fresh and salt water that helps them adjust to the ocean and provides a unique environment for feeding. During the springtime, when they are in those channels, they more than double in size.
“He’s quieter, slower marsh environments as we have here at this restored site really allow those fish to not get flushed kind of out of the system before they are ready,” Griffith says.
In a section of marsh restored in the fall of 2025, Griffith and his team spotted juvenile salmon in the spring of 2026. Around the channels, the plant life that historically covered the muddy, sandy flats is already beginning to return.
“In our line of work, we say water has a memory.” Griffith said, “If you allow water to work across the landscape as it once did, the plants and the animals respond fairly quickly.”
The benefit to the tribe is cultural and economic. Stillaguamish fishermen follow the tradition of generations before them, fishing for salmon in the river rather than in the sound or the ocean. The populations have been so poor, Griffith says, that no tribal fisherman is capturing Chinook.
“They’re one of the cornerstones of tribal culture in this region, and the lack of Salmon has had profound effects on the tribes,” Griffith said. “tribal members have not been able to support their communities and their families in the ways that they did for a long time.”
The efforts have not been without pushback, as Griffith says land-use discussions often bring passionate debate. In those discussions, he hopes neighbors can see the vision the tribe hopes to bring.
While the tribe destroyed the 100-year-old levee that followed the water’s edge, it built a new, taller one more inland from the Stillaguamish’s main channel. The project passed its first test during the record-breaking December flooding.
The entire marsh KIRO 7 met Griffith at was several feet underwater, but with more space. Farmers on the south end of the river noticed a difference.
“The water level on that side of the river was about a foot lower than they would have expected then without the project,” Griffith said. “There’s a house just upstream here that normally has water all the way around it during those kinds of floods, where the people can’t get in and out of their house, and one of the local farmers just today told me that [water] didn’t even get to the front steps.”
The Stillaguamish tribe has more work planned at the river delta and upstream. Griffith hopes it can benefit the whole valley.
“Salmon are an indicator of a healthy ecosystem,” He said, “When salmon populations are doing well, especially Chinook salmon, there are a whole host of other ecosystem components that are doing well.”
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